Migraine
is a type of recurring headache that involves blood
vessels, nerves, and brain chemicals, a severe headache
that hampers activity and cripples the ability to lead
a normal healthy life. A migraine may be experienced
several times a week or once every couple of years.
While the precise cause of migraines is unknown, a genetic
predisposition and environmental factors are the leading
triggers. An internal or external trigger sets the process
in motion.

The causes

Digestive causes - Skipping meals or
fasting also can trigger migraines. Certain foods appear
to trigger headaches in some people. Oily or fried food,
groundnuts, certain pulses, protein overload, too much
spicy food or meat, and coffee can all trigger headaches.
Also alcohol, especially beer and red wine can be triggers.

Changes in sleep-wake pattern - Either
lack of sleep or getting too much sleep may serve as
a trigger for migraine attacks in some individuals

Hormonal changes - There is a tendency
to develop migraines during hormonal changes- oestrogen
related- before during or after menses, or during menopause.
Migraine is three times more common in women than in
men due to this. Hormonal medications also can worsen
migraines.

Stress and emotional factors - Over
work, emotional turmoil, anger out bursts, stress in
any such form causes the arteries that supply blood
to the head to swell and gives rise to an experience
of severe pain. People who are prone to feelings like
anxiety, anger, guilt and grief are more receptive to
pain.

What triggers an attack of migraine?
Triggering factors are very individualistic and depends
on the sensitivity of the person.
Common migraine triggers include:
Direct exposure to the heat of the sun, especially in
the peak of summer. Head baths can also be a trigger.
Enclosed stuffy spaces, high levels of humidity and
weather changes
• Eyestrain- watching television, working with
the computer and continuous reading
• Acidity, gastritis or Constipation can trigger
headaches.
• Irregular meals and fasting, eating oily or
spicy food, excessive Tea or coffee, and flatulent food.
Alcohol- hang over, and especially wine can be a trigger.
• Lack of sleep or changing sleep patterns
• Traveling, long journeys, altitude and time
zone changes
• Excess emotions- anger, depression or crying
• Pregnancy, during menopause, before or during
menses.
• Heavy exercise, Perfumes and strong odors

Symptoms
The pain of a migraine headache is often described as
an intense pulsing or throbbing pain usually affecting
one side or both sides of the head, and is often accompanied
by nausea, vomiting, and visual disturbances. The pain
may be preceded by an "aura", of visual disturbances
that appear as flashing lights, zigzag lines or a temporary
loss of vision.
• Migraine attacks have several features but are
very individualistic:
• Headaches that occur in bouts of between roughly
4 to 72 hours.
• Headaches usually affect one side of the head
at a time, although both sides may be affected in separate
attacks.
• Headaches are usually throbbing and worsened
by normal physical activity
• Nausea and/or vomiting
• Preceding symptoms, called the ‘aura’
that most often are visual, such as zigzag lines or
flashing lights across or at the edges of the fields
of vision
• Other symptoms can include sensitivity to light
and sound, or non-visual aura such as a sensation of
tingling in the body

Treatment
Homeopathy has excellent treatment for migraines. Along
with the treatment there are few precautions which help
prevent and during an attack of headache.
• Drink lots of water and fruit juices, buttermilk
and tender coconut water
• Eat easily digestible food like curds, salads
and fruits. Fresh and raw or mildly cooked food is better
than cooked and oily food.
• Rest your eyes with a pad of cotton dipped in
water
• If it is due to gastric disturbance, drinking
jeera boiled with water relives the migraine. Ginger
decoction is a natural drink that also helps relieve
pain. It is an anti-inflammatory food that reduces pain.
• Avoid direct exposure to the sun. The suns hot,
sharp, penetrating rays increase the dilation of the
blood vessels in the brain, which results in the painful
headaches. Use an umbrella or wear a hat or other protection
from the sun.
• While traveling and in long flights, avoid having
coffee, tea and alcohol and have a lot of water and
fresh juice.
• Stay away from loud noise/ bright light and
sun and listen to relaxing music.
Homeopathic Treatment
Acute medicines in Homeopathy reduce the intensity of
the headache and act effectively to relieve the pain,
without increasing the nausea or aggravating the gastric
symptoms.
Long term management – The Homeopathic treatment
is very effective for the treatment and cure of migraine
headaches. Chronic medication is aimed at reducing the
intensity and frequency of the headaches and to treat
the root cause of the problem.
A constitutional medicine selected on the basis of the
complete attributes of the patient, past medical history,
family history is the key to complete cure of migraine
headaches.
Contact your Homeopath for relief from the migraine
now.

Epilepsy
is a serious neurological disorder affecting children
as well as adults. The patient experiences episodes
of convulsive body movements medically termed as seizures.
The seizures are typically described and observed
as spasmodic, irregular body movements, affecting
various muscle groups of body. It may present with
varying intensity and duration, and different groups
of muscles in different individuals, at different
times.

Typically, epilepsy or seizures occur due to abnormal
electrical activity in the brain which is reflected
on different groups of muscles.
Epilepsy is a chronic disease having a tendency to
relapse periodically and for many years to life time,
if not adequately treated.

Signs and symptoms of
epilepsy:
The most common symptom or a sign of epilepsy is recurrent
seizures or convulsions.
Seizures are involuntary movements, like jerking or
thrashing, or experiencing unusual feelings or sensations,
which can be associated with loss of consciousness
or being unaware of things happening around.

One may experience and describe seizures in various
ways, as it is often a subjective experience:
* Before appearance of seizure may be hours or days
ago, person can notice various changes in his behavior
or mood.
* The relevant history can be obtained from friend
or patient himself.
* The patient can also experience aura before the
seizure attack, something like “déjà
vu” phenomenon in which the patient feels that
he has seen this before or lived this before or can
smell strange things or see flashes of lights.
* After a partial seizure there may be temporary weakness
of the affected limb.
* After generalized seizure the patient may feel awful
with headache, myalgia, confusion, and a sore tongue.
It all happens because he transmission of the electrical
activity between the brain cells pauses for a while
manifesting as seizures.

Seizures could be of various forms; but for a given
patient they tend to be stereotyped.
Generally seizures can also be caused due to decrease
in sodium salts from the body, or due to high fever
or even due to hypoxia.
The diagnosis could be stigmatizing and has implications
for employment, insurance and driving.
Not everything that twitches is epilepsy; but tongue
biting is very suggestive of epilepsy
Causes of epilepsy:
There are several possible causes for epilepsy: They
may be grouped as: Physical causes:
* Trauma
* Space occupying lesion
* Stroke
* Very raised blood pressure
* Tuberous sclerosis

Classification of epilepsy:
The seizures that the patient experiences are of various
forms, they are classified as below:
Partial epilepsy: In this, the patient may loose consciousness,
there may be twitching or jerking of one single part
like twitching of finger or fingers, or twitching
of facial muscles. It happens because of the pausing
of the electrical activity in the brain, which could
be in one part, or can move to another part or may
stay in one area until the seizure is over.
Generalized seizure: Electrical disturbances occurring
all over brain at same time are generalized seizures.
They are further classified as follows:

a) Petit mal: the conversation is
associated with brief pauses e.g.: suddenly stops
talking in middle of the sentence, and then carries
on where he left off. Usually seen in childhood.b) Grand mal: has sudden onset, with
loss of consciousness, limbs stiffened, and then they
jerk and can feel drowsy post seizure.c) Myoclonic jerk: sudden fall on
the ground or giving up of the limb.d) Atonic: becoming flaccide) Akinetic: usually associated with
less motility of limbs like in infantile spasms

Diagnosis of epilepsy:
* Obtaining authentic history from the patient and
the witness
* Establishment of the cause
* Past medical history or family history
* Blood glucose both fasting and post-food
* CBC
* Calcium and phosphorus levels
* Imaging: CT scan, and MRI (also MRI angiography)
is indicated to evaluate the structural changes in
brain
* Electroencephalogram (EEG) is suggested for non
conclusive status.

Treatment of epilepsy:a. Conventional treatment:
Diagnosing epilepsy in error can be hazardous as conventional
therapy has significant side-effects.Carbamazepine: Usually used as a
first line of treatment in partial seizures.
Toxic effects: rash, nausea, diplopia, dizziness,
fluid retention,
Hyponatraemia, blood dyscrasiasSodium valproate: Usually used as
a first line of treatment in generalized seizure.Toxic effects: sedation, tremors,
increased weight, hair thinning, ankle swelling, hyperammonaemia,
liver failure.Phenytoin: No longer used as a first
choice of drug in partial a swell as generalized epilepsy
Due to its toxicity: nystagmus, diplopia, tremors,
dysarthria, ataxia. Toxic effects: decrease intellect,
depression, impaired drive, polyneuropathy, acne,
Gum hypertrophy, blood dyscrasias.

c. Surgical treatment in epilepsy:
About one third of the patients suffering from epilepsy
opt for surgical intervention due to failure in antiepileptic
medication. Few of these patients experience seizure
control after removal of the affected part of the
brain causing seizure. This is called as seizure surgery.
Usually the surgery is done to get rid of seizures
but the purpose of surgery is not to get off antiepileptic
drugs because even after successful epileptic surgery
the patient has to take antiepileptic drugs to remain
seizure free.

d. Homeopathic treatment:
Homeopathy is strongly recommended as supportive line
of treatment along with conventional treatment, in
most cases.
It may be stated that homeopathy alone may not help
all the cases of epilepsy. At the same time, it is
worth making a note that many cases of epilepsy which
were resistant to the conventional medication, do
respond significantly to homeopathy.
In the cases where brain tumor is the cause of epilepsy,
homeopathy is not suggested as the line of treatment.

Vertigo, or dizziness is not a disease, rather it’s
a symptom of an underlying disease. The term vertigo
refers to the sensation of spinning or whirling that
occurs as a result of a disturbance in equilibrium
(balance) of the body. Some other commonly used terms
for vertigo are dizziness, lightheadedness, faintness
and unsteadiness.

Vertigo
can be subjective (the patient feels that he is moving/spinning)
or objective (the patient feels objects around him
are moving or spinning). Some of the things that can
worsen the vertigo are moving the head, changing position,
turning while lying down, etc. There may be certain
other symptoms (nausea, vomiting, abnormal eye movements,
etc) associated with the vertigo depending on the
underlying disease.

Causes:
Vertigo can be caused due to disorders of the vestibular
system (structures in the inner ear), vestibular nerve,
brainstem or cerebellum. In some cases, the cause
of vertigo may remain unknown. Certain medications
and environmental chemicals may also damage the structures
of the inner ear or the nerves and thereby result
in vertigo. Alcohol can induce vertigo in some people
even when taken in small quantities. Systemic causes
of vertigo include orthostatic hypotension, head injury,
migraine, cardiovascular disorders, stroke, multiple
sclerosis, etc. BPPV (Benign paroxysmal positional
vertigo) is the most common form of vertigo.

Remarks:
Treatment of vertigo has to be directed towards the
underlying cause of the condition. Cases with BPPV
(the most common form of vertigo) and labyrinthitis
respond very well to Homeopathic treatment. Also vertigo
due to migraine or trauma (to head or neck) responds
well to the treatment. It must be noted that often
patients get very panicky due to symptoms of vertigo
and this may only worsen the condition of the patient.
Hence stress can be a trigger in increasing the already
existing symptoms. Homeopathy can also help to alleviate
the anxiety associated with the vertigo. Certain rehabilitation
exercises also help in controlling the symptoms and
returning back to normalcy. In case of drug-induced
vertigo, the medicine in question has to be stopped
after proper evaluation.

Homeopathic
treatment:
Homeopathy is strongly recommended for Vertigo. As
discussed above, the medication will help the patients
to get back to normalcy without having to bear any
of the side-effects of conventional medication. It
helps not only in controlling the intensity and frequency
of the attacks of vertigo, but also in alleviating
the anxiety that is frequently associated with this
condition. It improves the general immunity and vitality
of the patient apart from targeting the cause of the
vertigo.